Latin American Partnerships Cross Borders
Pinned between the Andres Mountain chain and the Pacific Ocean in South America, Chile is an indisputably remote location. But over the past decade it has nonetheless become a thriving locale for international student partnerships, with many of its higher education institutions (HEIs) receiving and sending students and faculty to and from much of the rest of the world. “When I came to Universidad Mayor in 2003, the university didn’t have any international agreements, but in the past 10 years, we have established cooperative agreements with 373 universities in 52 different countries,” says René Lara, vice president of international programs at Universidad Mayor (UM), Chile, a private university with more than 18,000 students. “During this period, we have mobilized more than 8,500 students (incoming and outgoing students). This trend is increasing every year.”
Universidad Mayor is not an outlier. The HEIs of Latin America, long among the least internationalized higher education regions in the world, are increasing and diversifying their international partnerships as they become further plugged into the world landscape, with partnerships between themselves and foreign HEIs moving beyond novelties and student exchanges to more sophisticated approaches to advancing their institutions’ presence on the world stage. In many cases, national internationalization strategies and support from abroad are driving their efforts.
An Explosion of Latin American Internationalization Efforts
A total of 48 percent of Latin American and Caribbean HEIs surveyed in a 2013 report by the International Association of Universities that was cosponsored by NAFSA, the IAU 4th Global Survey
